In answer to
a question about how to be free from fear, Jean Klein said, “First free
yourself from the word, the concept, 'fear.' It is loaded with memory. Face
only the perception. Accept the sensation completely. When the personality who
judges and controls is completely absent, when there is no longer a
psychological relationship with the sensation, it is really welcomed and unfolds.
Only in welcoming without a welcomer can there be real transformation..” (Who
Am I? The Sacred Quest, by Jean Klein)
I read these words recently with a sense of recognition. The way I have put it is that when whatever is experienced is completely experienced, without any opposition, what seems to have been unpleasant or painful becomes welcomed and even blissful. But Klein's statement is the “how” of this. That is, one only can completely experience, paradoxically, when the experiencer (“the personality,” in Klein's terminology) is absent. That's because the experiencer is never completely in the experience but always comparing, judging, trying to figure out how to have a better, freer experience. So the only way that “better experience” happens is when the experiencer gives up its self-appointed job and just relaxes into what is. Initially, at least, this seems only to happen when the experiencer gives up, when it realizes that the task it has assigned itself is impossible.
